AppHarvest

How it happened

AppHarvest was a U.S. indoor/controlled-environment agriculture company that went public via SPAC in early 2021 at about a $1B valuation, touting large high-tech greenhouses. Operational problems, weak harvests, and heavy cash burn crushed its stock, and the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2023, losing essentially all value. Glassdoor reviews describe a two-tier culture splitting salaried office staff from hourly greenhouse workers on pay, benefits and stock, plus recurring accounts of mandatory six-day weeks in greenhouses topping 100°F, thin training and poor communication. Insiders also described a gap between the company's promises and greenhouse reality, with some pointing to equipment breakdowns and crop losses and doubting production could ever scale as claimed.

Employee accounts paraphrase anonymous, unverified reviews posted publicly on Glassdoor ↗. See our methodology.